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Strategies for Writing Better Teaching Philosophy Statements

Teaching philosophy statements are now prepared for a variety of reasons: as part of a job application process; to be included in a promotion and tenure dossier; for a teaching award; or to foster reflection about how and why you teach. Regardless of purpose, the goal ought to be preparation of statements that reveal those beliefs and practices characteristic of an individual teacher. Writing teaching philosophy statements that accurately describe the instructional self isn’t easy, given that so many of us begin teaching careers with little training and continue them with episodic professional development. A set of resources can do much to assist the process and an impressive collection appears in the article referenced below.

Maryellen Weimer, PhD December 4, 2012

Academic Customer Service Shouldn’t be a Dirty Word

Earlier this year, we kicked off the semester with a faculty development workshop on academic customer service. Academic customer service is a hot and contentious topic on many college campuses, with faculty often reeling at the suggestion that students are customers (and therefore “always right”) or that education is a product intended for consumption. The feedback from our session in August was prickly and some of the comments demonstrated that we were in worse shape than I imagined.

Christine M. Nowik December 3, 2012

Three Principles for Cultivating Excellence in Academic Life

In the October 3rd issue of Faculty Focus, Maryellen Weimer underscores the idea that faculty need to take care of their instructional health and recognize the importance of emotional rejuvenation. She ends the post by asking readers: What are some things you do when you feel your teaching may be growing “tired?”

Shonu Nangia PhD November 30, 2012

Working with Online Teaching Assistants

The presence of Teaching Assistants (TAs) in a college course benefits both instructor and students. An assistant’s responsibilities typically include grading, troubleshooting, and fielding student questions, and their role is evolving to meet the needs of the online classroom.

Melissa A. Venable PhD November 29, 2012

Test Prep: Getting Your Students to Examine Their Approach

I was inspired by Maryellen Weimer’s article on “Teaching Metacognition to Improve Student Learning” and the accompanying article by Kimberly Tanner on “Promoting Student Metacognition.”

Tanner reflected on a comment I have heard many times: “…it’s my job to teach [your discipline or learning outcome goes here], not study strategies.” How often have we heard that our students don’t know how to learn? Regardless of whose fault it is, Weimer’s article shows how relatively easy it is to incorporate practical “meta-learning” strategies into our lesson plans. It’s a no-brainer if a teacher conducts a structured pre-test review class, and a post-test follow-up activity, where many of the issues on clarity, confusion, and preparedness will be brought into the light.

Greg Cooper November 27, 2012

Get Visual: A Technique for Improving Student Writing

One of the ongoing challenges for my composition students is the task of narrowing a broad, generalized topic into a more particular, focused topic for a short research essay. To help them develop this skill, I now prescribe a broad topic for everyone to use in the first research essay. Over several class sessions, we work collaboratively to explore the general topic, identify more particular subtopics, and develop research strategies to investigate these subtopics as possible subject matter.

Deborah Miller Fox November 26, 2012

App Review: CloudOn

Cloud users have a variety of options for accessing content as well as the option of using any number of apps to create content, e.g. documents, spreadsheets, and presentations just to name a few. Many of the available apps in the iTunes store and Google Play even mimic computer application programs that most of us use on a daily basis and CloudOn is one such app.

Dave Yearwood, PhD November 16, 2012

Six Ways to Get Your Online Students Participating in the Course

Have you ever worried about the level of participation in your online courses? Perhaps you have difficulty encouraging students to interact with one another, or maybe you find student responses to be perfunctory. Surely there must be a way to encourage the kinds of participation that really supports learning.

Jennifer Patterson Lorenzetti November 15, 2012

A New Way to Help Students Learn Course Vocabulary

Most college students struggle with the vocabulary of our disciplines. In their various electronic exchanges, they do not use a lot of multisyllabic, difficult-to-pronounce words. And virtually all college courses are vocabulary rich—unfamiliar words abound. Most students know that the new vocabulary in a course is important. They use flash cards and other methods to help them memorize the words and their meanings for their exams. Two days later, the words and their meanings are gone.

Maryellen Weimer, PhD November 13, 2012

Five Competencies for Culturally Competent Teaching and Learning

Today’s classrooms require that instructors possess competencies for teaching all students. Robust instructional strategies and culturally sensitive curricula are critical, but more important is an instructor who is sensitive and responsive to the unique differences of each student. Recognizing the need to strengthen specific competencies to reach and teach all students requires an understanding of new ideas and a willingness to view instruction through varied cultural lenses.

Cheryl Irish EdD and Monica Scrubb EdD November 12, 2012

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